


in the same time (just for a minute)

by kaleidoscopestars



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fallen Angels, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2020-01-20 20:54:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18532984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaleidoscopestars/pseuds/kaleidoscopestars
Summary: there’s nothing delicate or beautiful about an angel being cast down to earth. only jagged edges and ugly wounds.





	in the same time (just for a minute)

**Author's Note:**

> this has been posted before as a stray kids fic, but this is the original version and tbh i think it works better. apologies for any grammar/spelling errors i only ever seem to edit fics after 1am (if i bother at all)
> 
> the title is from one of these nights by red velvet!

When they first meet, the world is golden.

Sky and land meet in a burst of orange as the sun begins to sink below the horizon. The veil between heaven and the mortal world is gossamer thin, hanging like a network of spiderwebs between them. Donghyuck brushes through it easily, but the threads drag at his skin and stick to his clothes like insistent hands grasping at him, pulling him back and reminding him that he’s a child of heaven. This is where he belongs.

He shakes himself free and steps out, tilting his head back to feel the last of the sun’s warmth on his face. There’s nothing in any of heaven’s beauty that could compare to this, the fleeting sense of mortality he feels standing here as day turns to night and in the sky above him, the sun surrenders its rule to the moon.

He meets the boy on that day.

He’s sitting on the hill, mere metres from where Donghyuck descended from heaven, watching Donghyuck, gaze innocent and questioning, but not scared. Donghyuck tips his head to one side and stares back. The last remnants of light fragment off of the crystalline feathers of his wings and send tiny rainbows dancing across the planes of the boy’s face. In that moment, he looks more like a creature of heaven than Donghyuck does.  
“You aren’t afraid?” Donghyuck asks, voice full of wonder because he’s been alive since before the earth was molded into existence and he’s never met a single human whose first instinct wasn’t to fear.

There had been a time when angels had been vengeful warriors. Blazing across the sky in chariots of fire, carving a path of destruction through those who dared to defy their god and setting anything they defined as evil alight in blazing white, until all that was left were ashes and a ragged tear in history. That time is long over, but the stories remain. Branded into the minds of mortals and carried by tongue through tales that span generations.

Somehow, this boy doesn’t know the tales, didn’t have them whispered to him in his crib as a child and told to him in a low voice when he was older and misbehaving, as a way to scare him into obeying his parents. Either that or he doesn’t care.

“Of course not,” The boy says, starkly honest in reply to Donghyuck’s question “What is there to be afraid of?”

So many things. Many that Donghyuck could name and a multitude more that he doesn’t even dare to think of them, lest the universe plucks them from his mind and spins them into existence.

“Me.” is all he says in the end.

At that, the boy just laughs. His eyes crinkling up into crescent moons and his smile so bright that Donghyuck finds himself wondering how this boy could have stolen the sun from the sky and put it into his smile when Donghyuck can still see it setting behind him.

“I know what you are,” The boy gets to his feet and turns so that he’s facing Donghyuck. Face to face and eye to eye, in this form Donghyuck is a hair shorter than the boy and it’s strangely disconcerting “You wouldn’t harm me.” And it isn’t a question, there isn’t a trace of doubt in the boy’s voice.

Trust like that will eventually only lead to pain worse than a knife twisted deep in your spine. Everything you love razed to the ground and your hope left in tatters.

Some of Donghyuck’s brothers would melt the boy’s eyes in his skull and damn his soul for eternity, simply for daring to look at them. But whilst time has twisted them and made them cruel, it’s only made Donghyuck grow tired of violence and vengeance, of fire and brimstone.

“What’s your name, mortal?”

“Jeno,” Donghyuck rolls the syllables silently across his tongue, it feels like summer. It suits the boy and his unwavering trust. “What’s yours?”

“Donghyuck.” He has another name, one given to him when he first came into existence, but birth names like that have a sick kind of power that he never wants anyone to be able to hold over him ever again.

“Nice to meet you, Donghyuck.” The boy's grin grows even more and he holds his hand out. Donghyuck takes it and shakes it gently, the boy’s fingers are calloused and warm and strangely fragile. Human life is a dove kept trapped in a cage longing to be set free by keys that only death holds, and Donghyuck knows this all too well.

The sun is slipping out of sight and the once pure golden sky is shot through with grey and navy blue. “I’d better be going now,” Jeno says, drawing his hand back “I’ll see you again.” And with that, he takes off, running across the fields back to wherever he came from. Back to his home. Donghyuck feels a strange tugging feeling in his chest and he shrugs it off.

Time is a funny thing when you existed before it and will continue to exist after it. Donghyuck still tries. Tries to keep track of it, spending more time in the human realm, where time is linear and not convoluted and twisted like it is up in heaven. All so that he can find his way back to the hill at the same time every sunset in the pathetic hope of seeing Jeno again.

Most times when he goes back, Jeno is already there. Smile permanently on his face, waiting for Donghyuck. It’s an unspoken agreement that they’ll always meet when the sun begins to grow heavy in the sky and they never discuss it further. They’re both afraid that it might shatter the glass they’re treading on.

Like the flowers bloom in spring, so does Donghyuck’s affection for the sunshine boy and his quick wit. It roots itself deep in his bones and spreads throughout his body like ivy over a tree. Bouquets of red, orange, pink and purple spring into life and the petals fill his lungs until he feels lightheaded.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Renjun warns him. Above his head, a halo burns into the sky. Bright and yet terrible. Donghyuck nods his head silently because he knows he is and yet he can’t stop himself. Eons of toeing the line have made him defiant. Something about Jeno makes him want to sacrifice his divinity and damn the consequences.

But, in this world rules are laws carved deep into stone and signed by blood. They wrap themselves around Donghyuck’s ankles like red hot chains, burning into his skin and sinking into muscle, keeping him trapped. God’s golden boy, sitting at his right-hand side, so tightly bound by commandments that he can barely breathe.

Loving a human is tantamount to treason. Donghyuck knows this like it’s stitched into the back of his eyelids. He was there when it was decided, has seen what sidestepping the rule has done to countless angels lower than himself. He knows that he’s running on borrowed time that’s slowly drawing to a close and yet-

And yet he can’t bring himself to stop. Can’t tear himself away from the mortal boy and his sunshine smile.

He knows that the other archangels are growing curious about where he goes every day. Knows that it’s inevitable that one of them will think to follow him through the veil to find out the truth. Knows that it’ll bring the wrath of heaven crashing down upon him like a tsunami and that Jeno will get caught up in it and drown.

Jeno knows this too, it’s only right that he does. It isn’t Donghyucks place to dictate his life like a puppeteer. But once again Jeno doesn’t care.

“Nothing bad will happen to me,” He says, dusk bathing his face in soft pink and quiet purple. His head is resting on Donghyuck’s legs and Donghyuck gently runs his hands through Jeno’s hair as he talks “You won’t let it.” And Donghyuck bites his tongue because he’d sacrifice his very existence to save Jeno and yet, in the end, it’ll never be enough.

 

And in the end, it isn’t. They find him like he knew they would and drag him back up to heaven in shame, hands bound behind his back with golden rope that burns and burns until his arms are numb.

He’s brought in front of the other archangels, those he once called brothers, there’s no hint of recognition in their faces now. No empathy or compassion. They might as well be statues of alabaster and porcelain and finely wrought platinum. He catches sight of Renjun standing in their ranks, crystal tears brimming in his eyes and he stares straight forward not meeting Donghyuck’s eyes. Part of Donghyuck wants to yell at him, wants to curse him to the pits of Hell for not stopping this. Yet, he knows in his heart of hearts that there’s nothing Renjun could’ve done to stop this. He’s still young, at least for an archangel, and he’s too pure for the venom tinged politics of Heaven’s halls.

“You know why you’re here.” Doyoung’s voice is melodic yet harsh, like the crescendo of a song just before it’s brought to a close. He’s always been a stickler for the rules, it seems fitting that he’s the one about to tear Donghyuck down.

Donghyuck stays silent. He has nothing to say that they’d want to hear. The time for repentance has long since passed as far as they’re concerned.

“Bring him in.” A lower angel, one that Donghyuck recognises but doesn’t know appears, dragging Jeno by the arm and throwing him down in the centre of the room, too far away from Donghyuck for him to reach.

There’s a bruise blooming over Jeno’s cheekbone, deep purple like the evening sky on the night that they met and it’s already starting to fade at the ages to an ugly yellow. His eyes meet Donghyuck’s.

“Please-” It comes out as a choked sob and Donghyuck’s heart shatters like glass and the fragments dig into his lungs and fill his mouth with blood.

Donghyuck turns his head away and refuses to look back. Having to see him like this makes it too painful. Tears tumble from his eyes and where they fall to the ground around his feet flowers bloom like melancholy jewels.

Doyoung reaches one hand forward into the empty air towards Jeno and Donghyuck knows what’s going to happen. It’s something he’s borne witness to thousands of times. Heaven’s rage ripping through mortal life and erasing it.

Light streams from Doyoung’s fingertips and envelopes Jeno in its tendrils, burning him. Jeno cries out in pain, reaches his hand out towards Donghyuck in a desperate plea, and then he’s gone. Just like that.

“He’ll be born again,” Doyoung says, his voice pleasant as if he’s discussing the weather “Life after life until the end of the world. But he’ll never remember you.”

Donghyuck wants to laugh at him, this is their twisted form of mercy,

“Hold him.” Still, Doyoung’s voice is cordial, calm. Ice water on a third degree burn.

Doyoung steps forward as hands grab Donghyuck’s shoulders. He can’t make out who they belong to through the tears clouding his vision.

The world flashes black and then red as pain lances through his back in terrible waves. It feels as if he’s been impaled in the place where his wings once were. Doyoung moves back into his line of vision, hands covered in ichor.

There’s nothing delicate or beautiful about an angel being cast down to earth. Only jagged edges and ugly wounds.

Against his better judgement, Donghyuck glances over his shoulder. On the ground behind him lie his wings, ragged and torn. Ichor forms a pool of gold tinged red that runs into the cracks in the marble floor in tiny rivers. Feathers scatter the ground, already beginning to turn to dust. His stomach twists and he feels as if he might throw up.

What’s done can never be undone.

He knows what comes next. Once he’d been the one with hands drenched in blood and guilt heavy in his heart.

Renjun steps forward “I want to say goodbye, please.” His voice wavers with uncertainty, but Doyoung nods, lips pressed into a thin line. Donghyuck isn’t surprised that Doyoung granted his request; Renjun has always been one of his favourites, not that Doyoung would ever dare admit it.

He crosses the room to Donghyuck in a few short steps. It’s strange how close they’d actually been the whole time when it’s felt as if there were leagues between them. He grips Donghyuck’s arms tight and leans in until his lips are almost brushing against Donghyuck’s ear. “Find him,” He says and then steps back, slowly letting go of Donghyuck “I’ll miss you.” It’s barely a whisper.

“Goodbye.” Donghyuck gives him a small smile and Renjun turns and rejoins the ranks. At the end of the day, Renjun’s still one of them. Loyalty runs deeper than blood and stronger than diamond. At the end of the day, Donghyuck’s still loyal. Even after they twisted a knife into his back.

Doyoung holds his bloody hands up to the heavens above him and begins to chant. The prayers that fall from his lips are so familiar that they should feel comforting, but now he’s the evil that they refer to, he’s the ink blot against the pure white of heaven. There’s a kind of surrealness to it all.

Fire rises around him and the last thing he sees before he falls is Renjun’s face, a single tear finally falling from his eye.

He awakes in an unfamiliar city, slouched up against a wall. Night is falling fast and the chill of the air seeps into his bones. Subconsciously, before he can stop himself, he tries to stretch his wings out. Emptiness greets him and the realisation of what's happened hits him all at once and he lets out a choked sob, hands pressed over his mouth.

He’s still himself, still has all his memories and the same face, but it feels like there’s a gaping hole in his chest. Something more than just his wings is missing and he can never get it back.

Slowly, he pulls himself to his feet and stumbles forward. Whatever it takes, he’s going to find Jeno.

 

Years pass in a haze. He makes his way slowly across oceans, through forests, and over borders. Never staying in the same place for more than a few nights. It’s lonely, bitterly so, but he knows he’d never be able to live with himself if he stopped searching.

As he travels, time rolls on in catastrophic waves. Men become more easily swayed by the whispers of evil as the barricade keeping Hell’s doors shut finally begins to crumble and demons begin to slip through the gaps, making their way into the world around him.

He watches from the sidelines as Heaven withdraws to behind its walls of iron inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and their influence begins to wither and die. This isn’t their world anymore.

Renjun still visits him from time to time, walking next to him in dreams or leaving messages in obscure places that are almost enough to make Donghyuck laugh. It’s not the same as being to see him face to face and Donghyuck’s heart aches every time he lets himself dwell on it.

He thinks he sees Jeno everywhere he goes, in a flash of red hair, a corner of a smile, eyes that sparkle like the morning sun on the sea. He hears his laugh as well, in busy marketplaces and empty deserts, but it’s always someone or something else. The elements combining with his wishful thinking and playing tricks on him.

 

When they finally meet again, the world is indigo and painted with fire.

Donghyuck is dragged through the empty corridors of a grand castle as a city burns to the ground around them. A casualty of a war between countries he never bothered to learn the names of. The corridors stretch on for miles and when they finally reach the throne room he’s thrown to the ground. Cold stone scraping at his hands as he desperately tries to catch himself. He doesn’t bother lifting his head. Looking at the ground is less dangerous than meeting the wrong person’s eyes. He’s learned this the hard way.

“We found him lurking outside the eastern wing.” The voice is harsh and it rings in Donghyuck’s ears like a warning bell.

Footsteps echo through the empty room and stop in front of him. Slim fingers curl around his chin and lift it until he’s looking the person in the eyes.

Jeno.

His Jeno.

Except he isn’t. The smile that normally tugs at the corners of his mouth is gone and his eyes are shards of ice. Cold and uninviting. This Jeno has seen death too soon and far too much. A thin band of gold sits around his head, just above his eyebrows and in a moment of dizzy confusion Donghyuck thinks that it's a halo and this is all some sick joke before he realises it’s a crown. Jeno is the king of this burning city.

There isn’t even a flicker of recognition in his face and even though he’d foolishly thought he’d be ready for it, Donghyuck feels as if someone has taken his heart and ripped it in half with their bare hands before shoving it back inside his empty chest. To this Jeno, Donghyuck is a stranger.

“Stand.” His voice is quiet but it has the authority of someone who’s used to being listened to. The man beside Donghyuck yanks him to his feet and he stumbles and almost goes crashing back to the ground.

“What are you doing here?” It isn’t a question that he has the option of answering.

“Nothing, I’m just travelling.” _looking for you,_ he wants to say, but he doesn’t.

“This is an odd place to be travelling.” Jeno says, his head is tilted to one side and he looks strangely peaceful for someone whose entire kingdom is on the brink of falling

History has an odd way of repeating itself in the ways in which you least want it to, and once again the end comes much faster than Donghyuck could’ve ever imagined.

Shouts echo through the halls, growing closer. The enemy finally bringing their forces to the King’s doors. Jeno’s hand comes to rest on the pommel of his sword and the gesture reminds Donghyuck so much of Renjun that he has to look away. Metal clashes against metal in the distance and dying men scream their last.

“Can you fight?” Jeno asks Donghyuck, “Will you fight?” Donghyuck nods numbly, he’d do anything to protect Jeno. Even this Jeno who’s as alien to him as snow is to the warmest days of summer. Jeno nods his head in turn to the guard who’d dragged Donghyuck in from the street, and the man draws a dagger from his side and presses it into Donghyuck’s open palm. Donghyuck stares at it, the blade is barely as long as his hand and it looks impossibly flimsy, more ceremonial than practical. He takes it anyway.

The thing about archangels like himself is that even when they’ve fallen and been cast aside by Heaven, there’s little that can kill them. Neither time, nor poison, nor any weapon forged by the hands of men. So Donghyuck isn’t afraid. At least not for himself.

But Jeno doesn’t look fearful, not even in the slightest. He’s perfectly poised, chin high and his shoulders back, a peaceful expression fixed upon his face as if he’s a painting. The perfect picture of serenity. Even if it is just a facade put on for the sake of his men it’s flawless, there isn’t a single crack in it. The clang of metal against metal grows closer and closer until it’s right outside and the whole time everyone in the room remains frozen. Jeno and his five guards are all that remain of a once proud nation. And then there’s Donghyuck, already an outcast. A fugitive with no place to call home and if Jeno survives he’ll be like him.

“It’s been an honour,” Jeno says to his men as the banging on the great oak doors of the throne room begins.

He never gets to finish his sentence

With a crash, the doors swing open, ricocheting off the walls from the force. Heavy boots pound on flagstones like the ticking hands of a grand clock slowly counting down until the end. Beside him, Jeno draws his sword, rallying the last of his men behind him, it's a scene that great tapestries will one day depict beside mythical deities, that is if anyone lives to remember it. And then, before Donghyuck’s fraught nerves can summon a reaction to the storm of steel bearing down on them, Jeno leaps forward into the melee. The golden circlet on his head shining out like a beacon.

Human life is ephemeral, a candle flame burning brightly yet briefly. A simple second in the ticking clock of the universe and as Donghyuck watches, the flame is extinguished.

When it’s finally over, Donghyuck makes his way over to him, stepping over countless bodies to where Jeno has fallen. There’s a circle carved around him and he’s utterly alone. Where it was once burnished gold, his skin is now snow white, blending in with the marble floor beneath his head. Blood spreads out from his chest like falling rose petals and stains everything around him a vibrant red, he looks almost peaceful and around Donghyuck the universe crumples in on itself.

It was too much to lose him once, let alone a second time when he’d found him again for only mere minutes.

Donghyuck isn’t aware that he has fallen to his knees until he feels the blood soaking through the legs of his trousers. Slowly, he reaches out and closes Jeno’s eyelids as gently as he can. They feel like butterfly wings.

Losing him for the second time doesn’t hit as hard as it had done the first. After all, it wasn’t his Jeno, just the same face and the same kind brown eyes superimposed onto a stranger. Or maybe he’s already growing used to it. He hopes not. That sort of thing leads to the slippery slope of not caring about anything at all until he becomes little more than a statue, or worse a monster lacking in humanity and willing to die seeking revenge. Humanity is relative anyway when you aren’t human. In fact, it’s rather a quaint concept when you’re millennia old and have seen everything that Donghyuck has seen.

 

Winter strikes hard that year and Donghyuck moves south. He trudges through snow drifts until his feet feel like ice blocks and the cold air burns in his lungs like fire. And still he keeps going, following the strange tugging feeling in his gut that he can only hope is leading him in the right direction. Renjun joins him when he crosses the border from Jeno’s fallen kingdom. Donghyuck blinks in surprise and rubs his eyes, the ice crystals on his thin gloves spiking against his eyelids. Part of him thinks that Renjun is a hallucination, another part hopes that he is.

“Why only appear now?” Donghyuck asks. He’s been silent from the moment Renjun slipped through the veil between Donghyuck’s old home and his new one up until now, miles later. Hours of silence stretch behind them like mist on the air.

“There was too much death back there,” Renjun says with a shrug. The snowflakes warp around him and never touch his skin. His feet don’t touch the ground either, rather he walks above it. Skimming across the snow whilst Donghyuck if forced to wade. Of course, Renjun would say that. He’s never been one for violence, he’s too young for it to have ever been in his blood. Donghyuck envies him.

They continue like that for weeks, the snow slowly lessening the further south that they head. Renjun disappears, often for days at a time, but he always comes back. Until one day they reach a quiet seaside town and he doesn’t. It stings. Like a graze with salt rubbed into it only worse. It hurts both that Renjun left and that he never explained why. Then again, heaven’s politics are nebulous and dangerous and Renjun was already risking too much by staying away for so long.

When he’s been gone for a week with still no sign, Donghyuck gives up and keeps moving. He gets on the first boat he can buy safe passage on. It’s bound for a port the name of which Donghyuck can’t pronounce and that suits him fine.

When he gets off the ship, the first thing that strikes him is how different this new country is to the one he left behind. Everything here is loud and vibrant and so brilliantly human that for once he doesn’t miss Heaven’s marble halls quite so much. People bustle through the streets in brightly coloured clothes, all heading in different directions, all with their own purpose. Store owners shout over each other in a cacophony as Donghyuck pushes past through the streets and out of the city.

Too soon he’s back in endless countryside, but he can’t stop moving. He wasn’t going to find Jeno back there and somehow he’s certain of it.

Time is a funny thing. It keeps marching on no matter what. The earth spins on its axis, days melt into each other, seasons change on a whim before you can fully grasp what’s happening. It’s all too easy to lose track of it and Donghyuck does. He lets weeks slip through his fingers like sand whilst he does nothing.

Eventually, after years, maybe decades- he can’t tell- his path collides with that of a travelling fair. Multicoloured cloth tents spring from the ground as if they had grown there. Everything is busy and bustling. Teeming with life, a stark contrast to the desert wasteland all around them and the dusty, silent town that the fair has set up shop by. Donghyuck wanders through the alleys between the tents trying not to be noticed. It’s been too long since he spoke out loud and he’s afraid that if someone tried to talk to him he would forget how to reply.

He’s little more than a ghost. A three dimensional shadow. But someone notices him anyway.

“I haven’t seen you around here before.” The boy is leaning on one of the support struts of the tent opposite Donghyuck. His jacket is a lurid, blood red and the sleeves are rolled up to elbows, his trousers are ripped in more than one place, and there’s paint smudged up his forearms and across his face in a haphazard pattern. A paintbrush is tucked behind his left ear.

Donghyuck jumps, his entire body freezing. It’s him. Jeno.

“I’m new in town.” He says, his voice cracked and hoarse from lack of use. 

Jeno grins “I thought so, I’d remember a face like yours,” It shouldn’t hurt, but it does.

“I’m Donghyuck.” He holds his hand out and Jeno takes it and shakes it firmly.

“Jeno,” He replies “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Jeno leads him through the small gaps between the tents with a practiced ease leaving Donghyuck to stumble along behind him, tripping over ropes and tent pegs and other people’s feet. He talks the whole time, his hands never still for a minute as they gesture and point. Everything about the way he moves is so graceful, fluid, the way a dancer commands a stage. And god, Donghyuck missed his voice, he doesn’t even register half of what Jeno says because he’s so busy trying to wrap his head around the fact that Jeno is here and he found him again and-

“Hey,” Jeno waves a hand in front of his face. “You looked like you were in another world for a minute there. Please don’t say I was boring you,” There’s laughter in his voice and his eyes sparkle in the torchlight like twin suns.

“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” The words are rushed, falling from his mouth like an avalanche and Jeno lets out a short laugh, like the peal of a bell.

“I asked if you wanted to get something to eat. It’s on me.”

Donghyuck nods his head and Jeno grabs his hand and pulls him through the crowd until they get to one of the many stalls. ‘It’s on me’ turns out to be Jeno wheedling free food out of the old lady who runs the stall, all puppy eyes, and fake pouting. She rolls her eyes like this has happened a thousand times before, but she eventually relents and hands over something wrapped tightly in white cloth.

 

They eat the honey cakes sitting just outside the ring of tents. Far enough away that the shouts have faded to a distant hum, but close enough that the light from the fires makes Jenos face glow. Over their heads, thousands of stars shine, twisted into galaxies and constellations. Donghyuck points out the ones he can remember and Jeno listens intently. Quiet for the first time that night.

Eventually, even the moon starts to dip toward the horizon and Jeno gets to his feet.

“I should get back,” There’s an apology in his tone and in the way that he twists his hands together. And it’s weird to Donghyuck, because Jeno doesn’t have anything to be sorry for.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Donghyuck can’t tell if it’s guilt or sadness or something else that’s shining in his eyes (and when he looks back on it later, he’ll realise that it’s both) before they’re parting ways with an awkward wave. He watches until Jeno’s silhouette is swallowed whole by the shadows between the tents.

 

When he goes back in the morning, everything is gone.

He heads back into town, to the shabby inn with the moth-bitten sheets and the low ceiling, and asks the innkeeper. The man just gives him a look that’s part pity and part impatience.

“The fair packed up and moved on to who knows where. They’re only ever here for three days.” And just like that Donghyuck is back to where he started.

 

The demon finds him the next night in the corner of the same inn. He slides into the seat next to Donghyuck and grins at him, wide and sharp. For all the tales he’s heard, Donghyuck has never actually met a demon in human form. In their true form, they’re all smoke and darkness and fire burning searingly hot. This boy has bright eyes and he looks far too young to be in a place like this, but no one questions him. Donghyuck recognises him anyway from the metallic taste in the air and the void that seems to surround him.

There’s something feline about his appearance, just a little too much to be human. He asks Donghyuck question after question about his life before, all of which Donghyuck pointedly ignores.

“Come on,” The demon- Chenle- says when Donghyuck finally fights his way out of the inn into the cool night air. “Don’t you want to get revenge for what they did you?” His voice is sing-song like a child playing games and his words sound tempting (how Donghyuck would love to see the great hall torn to rubble and everything, all of the lies and sickly poison burning), but he shakes his head.

It’s a cruel reminder though. Of how after all these years he still knows how to bring Heaven crashing to its knees.

Lifetimes pass and Donghyuck watches the cycle of life wear itself out over and over. He makes a few attempts to settle down in one city, but it feels like fire is crawling through his bones every time he stops, so he moves on again just as quickly. Dirt tracks turn to paved roads and buildings grow taller as the years move on, sluggish and unbearable like nails scraping over stone.

And then, when the leaves on the trees are fading to golden brown, and the nights are growing longer, Donghyuck meets Jaemin. It’s an accident in the best possible way- they bump into each other at dusk in a town that looks the same as every other one that Donghyuck has seen recently. Donghyuck ends up sprawled on the pavement and Minho apologises profusely and offers to buy him a drink to say sorry for being ‘Too wrapped up in his own thoughts,’ as he puts it.

Donghyuck agrees- although it takes him a minute to decide because there’s something slightly off about this man with his black coat and dark eyes. But what does he really have to lose? And they find themselves in a bar, talking over glasses of long forgotten beer.

“You know,” Jaemin says, his cheeks are flushed from the alcohol, but his composure is perfect and there’s something unnervingly serious about him compared to how he’d been joking and laughing only a second before. “I think we’re a bit alike, you and I.”

There’s wisdom in his eyes that defies his young face. The sort of wisdom that only comes from seeing the very worst of what humanity has to offer, but also the best. The sort of wisdom that can’t be gained in one lifetime. So Donghyuck nods and ignores the feeling of ice water creeping along his spine.

“I think we are.” He replies.

 

They travel together after that. It’s nice to have someone to talk to, to rely on. Donghyuck hasn’t seen Renjun in so long that he’s almost forgotten what companionship feels like. There’s still something about Jaemin that sets Donghyuck’s teeth on edge. A sort of darkness that hangs around him like an aura and never leaves, no matter how bright the sun is.

He and Jaemin aren’t exactly the same. Jaemin isn’t a creature of heaven, that much is certain, but he’s something and Donghyuck never asks what exactly because he’s afraid that he won’t like the answer.

 

The world turns to steel and chrome, everything grey and monotonous. Donghyuck has never missed the serene tranquility of heaven so much, but at least travelling has grown faster with cars and trains and planes that skim the clouds. Somehow, Jaemin has persuaded him to move into a cramped flat with him in the heart of the city. He’s never hated anything this much, but he stays anyway because Jaemin is staying and although he’d never admit it, he’s grown attached.

“Fate works in its own ways,” Jaemin says, the light bulb in the kitchen has broken for the third time that week and he’s trying to fix it. Technology still feels too foreign in Donghyuck’s hands. “If you’re meant to meet Jeno again then you will, and nothing will change that, no matter where you are or how hard you try to find him.”

So Donghyuck stays. The city reminds him of a monster stirring in its sleep and waiting to swallow him whole. He spends most of his time moping in the apartment or riding the subway in loops, round and round.

No one pays attention to him on the subway. It’s always bustling with life, but everyone else has somewhere to be. They're all always constantly in motion. No one pays attention to the guy in the dark hoodie sitting in the corner of the carriage, his head resting against the wall behind him as if he’s asleep. And that’s what Donghyuck really loves about it.

But nothing perfect can ever last. Eventually, one evening in early spring, someone sits down next to him and pulls his headphone from his ear. Donghyuck whips his head around, ready to spit out an insult, but he’s met with Renjun’s sheepish face and the words turn to dust on his tongue.

“Hi,” He says awkwardly, his hands fidgeting in the way they always do when he’s nervous. “Long time no see.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted to come back and I tried so many times and I couldn’t and-” Renjun trails off, his voice starting to shake. He doesn’t have to say anything else. Because this is Renjun and it may have been centuries since they were brothers in arms, but Donghyuck still knows him better than he knows himself. Most importantly he knows that Renjun would never abandon him willingly. So he reaches out and wraps an arm around Renjun’s shoulders; Renjun leans into him and it’s almost like all that time ago before Donghyuck’s world was ripped apart at the seams and left to crumble.

“How’s home?” The word feels like acid in his mouth. It isn’t his home anymore. Home is a couple of rooms in a derelict building with mold on the walls and water that only works half the time. Although, sometimes at night when Donghyuck lies awake listening to buzz of the city and Jaemin’s steady breathing in the next room, it feels more like home than heaven ever did.

“The same as ever.” And there’s a bitter note in Renjun’s voice that Donghyuck has never heard before.

“Some things never change.” He isn’t just talking about Heaven, he’s talking about himself and Renjun and even Jaemin.

When Renjun speaks again his voice is muffled from where his face is pressed in Donghyuck’s shoulder and, honestly, Donghyuck isn’t sure if he was meant to hear it. “But I wish they could.”

Silence falls, interrupted only by the rumble of the train on the tracks. When they get off at Donghyuck’s stop, Renjun glances at the sky and winces. Night has fallen faster than a guillotine.

“I should get back,” He says.

“Stick around this time.” Donghyuck replies and Renjun nods once before vanishing with a faint pop.

 

And he does. He’s almost become a regular fixture in their apartment from the amount of time he spends there, as much as the ratty couch and the coffee table that’s actually just a cardboard box with COFFEE TABLE scrawled across it in sharpie (Jaemin’s idea.). Every time he comes back he brings whispers of a revolution with him and it’s all Donghyuck can do to hope that Renjun isn’t too caught up in it all.

 

In April, a new Starbucks opens on their street. Jaemin whinges and groans about how toxic capitalism is and how it’s putting an end to small family run businesses, before shoving a couple of notes at Donghyuck and telling him to go get him some horrible concoction with far too many shots of espresso in it. Donghyuck rolls his eyes and shoves his shoes onto his feet. There’s no use arguing with Jaemin.

The cherry blossom trees are starting to bloom and pink petals drift through the air, carried through an invisible breeze. It’s the one thing that Donghyuck likes about this part of the city.

It’s a pleasant surprise when he pushes open the door of the Starbucks expecting to see a long queue and is instead greeted with an almost empty room. There are a couple of people sitting near the windows, but other than that nothing. He makes his way over to the counter slowly, trying to work out if he has enough cash to get something for himself as well.

The barista turns around, but Donghyuck isn’t paying attention.

“Hi, what can I get for you today?”

He knows that voice, knows it from the hours that he’s spent replaying memories in his head until they faded or ceased to exist altogether. His head jerks up and _oh_.

Jeno stares back at him, a curious expression on his face. His hair flops into one eye and he looks better in his uniform than he probably should. Maybe Jaemin had been right about fate after all.

“I’m sorry to ask,” Jeno says, “But do I know you from somewhere? You seem kind of familiar?”

It takes Donghyuck a second to get over his initial shock. “No, I’m sorry. I would’ve remembered a face like yours.” He’s echoing someone else’s words from a lifetime ago and when he realises exactly what he just said he flushes a deep crimson. He can feel the heat creeping up his face.

Thankfully Jeno seems to find it funny and he giggles as Donghyuck stutters out his order.

“I’ll see you around, Donghyuck.” He says as he hands over his Americano and Jaemin’s drink in their styrofoam cups. And Donghyuck thinks that he replies, but he’s so flustered that there’s no way to tell if he actually did.

He’s halfway home before he realises, and when he does it hits him so hard that he almost drops the drinks.

He never told Jeno his name.

Deep down in his chest, he allows a flicker of hope to bloom for the first time. Somehow he knows this time- this lifetime- will be different.

**Author's Note:**

> any feedback is appreciated!! :D


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